HP 3 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Read online

  “Snape?” said Black harshly, taking his eyes off Scabbers; for the first time in minutes and looking up at Lupin. “What’s Snape got to do with it?”

  “He’s here, Sirius,” said Lupin heavily. “He’s teaching here as well.” He looked up at Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

  “Professor Snape was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons…you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me —”

  Black made a derisive noise.

  “It served him right,” he sneered. “Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to…hoping he could get us expelled.…”

  “Severus was very interested in where I went every month.” Lupin told Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “We were in the same year, you know, and we — er — didn’t like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James’s talent on the Quidditch field…anyway Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be — er — amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he’d be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it — if he’d got as far as this house, he’d have met a fully grown werewolf — but your father, who’d heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life…Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was.…”

  “So that’s why Snape doesn’t like you,” said Harry slowly, “because he thought you were in on the joke?”

  “That’s right,” sneered a cold voice from the wall behind Lupin.

  Severus Snape was pulling off the Invisibility Cloak, his wand pointing directly at Lupin.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE SERVANT OF LORD VOLDEMORT

  Hermione screamed. Black leapt to his feet. Harry felt as though he’d received a huge electric shock.

  “I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow,” said Snape, throwing the cloak aside, careful to keep this wand pointing directly at Lupin’s chest. “Very useful, Potter, I thank you….”

  Snape was slightly breathless, but his face was full of suppressed triumph. “You’re wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here?” he said, his eyes glittering. “I’ve just been to your office, Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a gobletful along. And very lucky I did…lucky for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map. One glance at it told me all I needed to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight.”

  “Severus —” Lupin began, but Snape overrode him.

  “I’ve told the headmaster again and again that you’re helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin, and here’s the proof. Not even I dreamed you would have the nerve to use this old place as your hideout —”

  “Severus, you’re making a mistake,” said Lupin urgently. “You haven’t heard everything — I can explain — Sirius is not here to kill Harry —”

  “Two more for Azkaban tonight,” said Snape, his eyes now gleaming fanatically. “I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this…He was quite convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin…a tame werewolf —”

  “You fool,” said Lupin softly. “Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?”

  BANG! Thin, snakelike cords burst from the end of Snape’s wand and twisted themselves around Lupin’s mouth, wrists, and ankles; he overbalanced and fell to the floor, unable to move. With a roar of rage, Black started toward Snape, but Snape pointed his wand straight between Black’s eyes.

  “Give me a reason,” he whispered. “Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will.”

  Black stopped dead. It would have been impossible to say which face showed more hatred.

  Harry stood there, paralyzed, not knowing what to do or whom to believe. He glanced around at Ron and Hermione. Ron looked just as confused as he did, still fighting to keep hold on the struggling Scabbers. Hermione, however, took an uncertain step toward Snape and said, in a very breathless voice, “Professor Snape — it wouldn’t hurt to hear what they’ve got to say, w-would it?”

  “Miss Granger, you are already facing suspension from this school,” Snape spat. “You, Potter, and Weasley are out-of-bounds, in the company of a convicted murderer and a werewolf. For once in your life, hold your tongue.”

  “But if — if there was a mistake —”

  “KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL!” Snape shouted, looking suddenly quite deranged. “DON’T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” A few sparks shot out of the end of his wand, which was still pointed at Black’s face. Hermione fell silent.

  “Vengeance is very sweet,” Snape breathed at Black. “How I hoped I would be the one to catch you….”

  “The joke’s on you again, Severus,” Black snarled. “As long as this boy brings his rat up to the castle” — he jerked his head at Ron — “I’ll come quietly….”

  “Up to the castle?” said Snape silkily. “I don’t think we need to go that far. All I have to do is call the Dementors once we get out of the Willow. They’ll be very pleased to see you, Black…pleased enough to give you a little kiss, I daresay…I —”

  What little color there was in Black’s face left it.

  “You -you’ve got to hear me out,” he croaked. “The rat — look at the rat —”

  But there was a mad glint in Snape’s eyes that Harry had never seen before. He seemed beyond reason.

  “Come on, all of you,” he said. He clicked his fingers, and the ends of the cords that bound Lupin flew to his hands. “I’ll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the Dementors will have a kiss for him too —”

  Before he knew what he was doing, Harry had crossed the room in three strides and blocked the door.

  “Get out of the way, Potter, you’re in enough trouble already,” snarled Snape. “If I hadn’t been here to save your skin —”

  “Professor Lupin could have killed me about a hundred times this year,” Harry said. “I’ve been alone with him loads of times, having defense lessons against the Dementors. If he was helping Black, why didn’t he just finish me off then?”

  “Don’t ask me to fathom the way a werewolf’s mind works,” hissed Snape. “Get out of the way, Potter.”

  “YOU’RE PATHETIC!” Harry yelled. “JUST BECAUSE THEY MADE A FOOL OF YOU AT SCHOOL YOU WON’T EVEN LISTEN —”

  “SILENCE! I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT!” Snape shrieked, looking madder than ever. “Like father, like son, Potter! I have just saved your neck; you should be thanking me on bended knee! You would have been well served if he’d killed you! You’d have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black — now get out of the way, or I will make you. GET OUT OF THE WAY, POTTER!”

  Harry made up his mind in a split second. Before Snape could take even one step toward him, he had raised his wand.

  “Expelliarmus!” he yelled — except that his wasn’t the only voice that shouted. There was a blast that made the door rattle on its hinges; Snape was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall, then slid down it to the floor, a trickle of blood oozing from under his hair. He had been knocked out.

  Harry looked around. Both Ron and Hermione had tried to disarm Snape at exactly the same moment. Snape’s wand soared in a high arc and landed on the bed next to Crookshanks.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” said Black, looking at Harry.

  “You should have left him to me….”

  Harry avoided Black’s eyes. He wasn’t sure, even now, that he’d done the right thing.

  “We attacked a teacher…We attacked a teacher…” Hermione whimpered, staring at the lifeless Snape with frightened eyes. “Oh, we’re going to be in so
much trouble —”

  Lupin was struggling against his bonds. Black bent down quickly and untied him. Lupin straightened up, rubbing his arms where the ropes had cut into them.

  “Thank you, Harry,” he said.

  “I’m still not saying I believe you,” he told Lupin.

  “Then it’s time we offered you some proof,” said Lupin. “You, boy — give me Peter, please. Now.”

  Ron clutched Scabbers closer to his chest.

  “Come off it,” he said weakly. “Are you trying to say he broke out of Azkaban just to get his hands on Scabbers? I mean…” He looked up at Harry and Hermione for support, “Okay, say Pettigrew could turn into a rat — there are millions of rats — how’s he supposed to know which one he is after if he was locked up in Azkaban?”

  “You know, Sirius, that’s a fair question,” said Lupin, turning to Black and frowning slightly. “How did you find out where he was?”

  Black put one of his claw-like hands inside his robes and took out a crumpled piece of paper, which he smoothed flat and held out to show the others.

  It was the photograph of Ron and his family that had appeared in the Daily Prophet the previous summer, and there, on Ron’s shoulder, was Scabbers.

  “How did you get this?” Lupin asked Black, thunderstruck.

  “Fudge,” said Black. “When he came to inspect Azkaban last year, he gave me his paper. And there was Peter, on the front page on this boy’s shoulder…I knew him at once…how many times had I seen him transform? And the caption said the boy would be going back to Hogwarts…to where Harry was…”

  “My God,” said Lupin softly, staring from Scabbers to the picture in the paper and back again. “His front paw…”

  “What about it?” said Ron defiantly.

  “He’s got a toe missing,” said Black.

  “Of course,” Lupin breathed. “So simple…so brilliant…he cut it off himself?”

  “Just before he transformed,” said Black. “When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I’d betrayed Lily and James. Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself — and sped down into the sewer with the other rats….”

  “Didn’t you ever hear, Ron?” said Lupin. “The biggest bit of Peter they found was his finger.”

  “Look, Scabbers probably had a fight with another rat or something! He’s been in my family for ages, right —”

  “Twelve years, in fact,” said Lupin. “Didn’t you ever wonder why he was living so long?”

  “We — we’ve been taking good care of him!” said Ron.

  “Not looking too good at the moment, though, is he?” said Lupin. “I’d guess he’s been losing weight ever since he heard Sirius was on the loose again….”

  “He’s been scared of that mad cat!” said Ron, nodding toward Crookshanks, who was still purring on the bed.

  But that wasn’t right, Harry thought suddenly…Scabbers had been looking ill before he met Crookshanks… ever since Ron’s return from Egypt…since the time when Black had escaped….

  “This cat isn’t mad,” said Black hoarsely. He reached out a bony hand and stroked Crookshanks’s fluffy head. “He’s the most intelligent of his kind I’ve ever met. He recognized Peter for what he was right away. And when he met me, he knew I was no dog. It was a while before he trusted me…Finally, I managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he’s been helping me…”

  “What do you mean?” breathed Hermione.

  “He tried to bring Peter to me, but couldn’t…so he stole the passwords into Gryffindor Tower for me…As I understand it, he took them from a boy’s bedside table…”

  Harry’s brain seemed to be sagging under the weight of what he was hearing. It was absurd…and yet… “But Peter got wind of what was going on and ran for it.” croaked Black. “This cat — Crookshanks, did you call him? — told me Peter had left blood on the sheets…I supposed he bit himself…Well, faking his own death had worked once.”

  These words jolted Harry to his senses.

  “And why did he fake his death?” he said furiously. “Because he knew you were about to kill him like you killed my parents!”

  “No,” said Lupin, “Harry—”

  “And now you’ve come to finish him off!”

  “Yes, I have,” said Black, with an evil look at Scabbers.

  “Then I should’ve let Snape take you!” Harry shouted.

  “Harry,” said Lupin hurriedly, “don’t you see? All this time we’ve thought Sirius betrayed your parents, and Peter tracked him down — but it was the other way around, don’t you see? Peter betrayed your mother and father — Sirius tracked Peter down —”

  “THAT’S NOT TRUE!” Harry yelled. “HE WAS THEIR SECRET-KEEPER! HE SAID SO BEFORE YOU TURNED UP. HE SAID HE KILLED THEM!”

  He was pointing at Black, who shook his head slowly; the sunken eyes were suddenly over bright.

  “Harry…I as good as killed them,” he croaked. “I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me…I’m to blame, I know it…The night they died, I’d arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he’d gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn’t feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents’ house straight away. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies…I realized what Peter must’ve done…what I’d done….”

  His voice broke. He turned away.

  “Enough of this,” said Lupin, and there was a steely note in his voice Harry had never heard before. “There’s one certain way to prove what really happened. Ron, give me that rat.”

  “What are you going to do with him if I give him to you?” Ron asked Lupin tensely.

  “Force him to show himself,” said Lupin. “If he really is a rat, it won’t hurt him.”

  Ron hesitated. Then at long last, he held out Scabbers and Lupin took him. Scabbers began to squeak without stopping, twisting and turning, his tiny black eyes bulging in his head. “Ready, Sirius?” said Lupin.

  Black had already retrieved Snape’s wand from the bed. He approached Lupin and the struggling rat, and his wet eyes suddenly seemed to be burning in his face.

  “Together?” he said quietly.

  “I think so”, said Lupin, holding Scabbers tightly in one hand and his wand in the other. “On the count of three. One — two — THREE!”

  A flash of blue-white light erupted from both wands; for a moment, Scabbers was frozen in midair, his small gray form twisting madly — Ron yelled — the rat fell and hit the floor. There was another blinding flash of light and then —

  It was like watching a speeded-up film of a growing tree. A head was shooting upward from the ground; limbs were sprouting; a moment later, a man was standing where Scabbers had been, cringing and wringing his hands. Crookshanks was spitting and snarling on the bed; the hair on his back was standing up.

  He was a very short man, hardly taller than Harry and Hermione. His thin, colorless hair was unkempt and there was a large bald patch on top. He had the shrunken appearance of a plump man who has lost a lot of weight in a short time. His skin looked grubby, almost like Scabbers’s fur, and something of the rat lingered around his pointed nose and his very small, watery eyes. He looked around at them all, his breathing fast and shallow. Harry saw his eyes dart to the door and back again.

  “Well, hello, Peter,” said Lupin pleasantly, as though rats frequently erupted into old school friends around him. “Long time, no see.”

  “S—Sirius…R—Remus…” Even Pettigrew’s voice was squeaky. Again, his eyes darted toward the door. “My friends…my old friends…”

  Black’s wand arm rose, but Lupin seized him around the wrist, gave him a warning took, then turned again to Pettigrew, his voice light and casual.

  “We’ve been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the nig
ht Lily and James died. You might have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there on the bed —”

  “Remus,” gasped Pettigrew, and Harry could see beads of sweat breaking out over his pasty face, “you don’t believe him, do you…? He tried to kill me, Remus….”

  “So we’ve heard,” said Lupin, more coldly. “I’d like to clear up one or two little matters with you, Peter, if you’ll be so —”

  “He’s come to try and kill me again!” Pettigrew squeaked suddenly, pointing at Black, and Harry saw that he used his middle finger, because his index was missing. “He killed Lily and James and now he’s going to kill me too…You’ve got to help me, Remus….”

  Black’s face looked more skull-like than ever as he stared at Pettigrew with his fathomless eyes.

  “No one’s going to try and kill you until we’ve sorted a few things out,” said Lupin.

  “Sorted things out?” squealed Pettigrew, looking wildly about him once more, eyes taking in the boarded windows and, again, the only door. “I knew he’d come after me! I knew he’d be back for me! I’ve been waiting for this for twelve years!”

  “You knew Sirius was going to break out of Azkaban?” said Lupin, his brow furrowed. “When nobody has ever done it before?”

  “He’s got dark powers the rest of us can only dream of!” Pettigrew shouted shrilly. “How else did he get out of there? I suppose He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a few tricks!”

  Black started to laugh, a horrible, mirthless laugh that filled the whole room.

  “Voldemort, teach me tricks?” he said.

  Pettigrew flinched as though Black had brandished a whip at him.

  “What, scared to hear your old master’s name?” said Black. “I don’t blame you, Peter. His lot aren’t very happy with you, are they?”